MARCOL has procured medneo; a €30million growth funding facility from European Investment Bank (EIB)
1 November 2017
This is part of medneo’s €88million growth programme for 2017-2019. The financing is part of the EU’s strategic programme to support innovative growth companies in Europe. The facility will support medneo in enlarging its activities in the radiology sector, increasing process efficiency for its customers and enabling patient’s access to a higher quality radiology service with shorter waiting times.
medneo is an innovative diagnostic imaging operator head quartered in Berlin. MARCOL invested in medneo in 2015, and now owns it together with the three founders. MARCOL’s funding and support has enabled medneo to grow from three to ten centers in last two years. The new growth programme will be supported by MARCOL’s international infrastructure and growth capital provided by the EIB and leading European banks to both accelerate national expansion across Germany and enter new international markets.
medneo was founded in 2011, specialising in “Radiology as a Service” with its own diagnostic platforms and an international tele-radiology network. medneo offers its customers (physicians, hospitals, research institutes) fully equipped diagnostic imaging platforms (mostly MRI and CT) including the entire non-medical operation and management of the diagnostic value-chain, resulting in a reduction in cost and an increase in quality. Customers buy clinical images instead of medical equipment.
The plan for medneo is to continue with its successful roll-out across Germany in both out- and in-patient sectors, strengthening its market position with the “shared economy concept” in the diagnostic imaging market. The international expansion is being accompanied by a continuous development of new products and services that will enable an innovative way to efficiently operate diagnostic imaging platforms for customers around the globe – whilst proving worldwide services and quality of the highest standard. The business aims to establish many diagnostic imaging platforms across the globe, delivering a substantial number of scans to customers world-wide.
MARCOL has been instrumental in helping medneo to access additional funding. With MARCOL’S expertise and reputation, EIB, Europe’s largest bank approached MARCOL to consider their new EFSI facilities for MARCOL companies. EFSI (European Fund for Strategic Investments) is the central pillar of European Union’s the “Investment Plan for Europe”; also known as the Juncker Plan, with which the EIB Group and the European Commission as strategic partners aim to boost the competitiveness of the European economy and foster sustainable growth.
Ambroise Fayolle, Vice-President of the EIB and responsible for Germany, commented: “The EU bank’s investments, especially in innovative SMEs, are key to helping strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and fostering sustainable growth. Our transaction with medneo demonstrates such support. medneo is an innovative radiology service provider targeting areas of significant unmet need. Our loan, in particular, through its long tenor and its favorable financing conditions, is a high added-value transaction, as it will enable medneo to significantly enlarge its activities, speed up its investment plans and foster its market penetration thus also create new employment.
Nicolas Weber, Co-Founder and Managing Director of medneo, commented: “We are very pleased about the fact that the EIB has recognised medneo’s potential for increasing efficiency in the radiology service sector. The high demand for our services and our recent openings of 6 new radiology centers in 2017 in combination with access to additional funding through the EIB forms a very promising basis for our company’s future.”
Pii Ketvel said: “As a pan-European investor in innovative growth companies, we are delighted by the support provided by the EIB and EU for the companies in this important sector. We were most impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the EIB teams working with us to put together the medneo facility. Given the strong relationship built with the EIB we very much look forward to working with the EIB EFSI teams on a number future deals for our growth companies – and strongly encourage other growth companies to do the same”.
European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, said: “The Investment Plan is supporting an increasing number of projects in the medical sector. These projects – such as the one being signed today with medneo – are innovative and use cutting-edge technology to improve citizens’ access to the best available healthcare. The importance of imaging diagnostics is growing in the healthcare sector, so I wish medneo every success in their project.”
Terence Cole and Mark Steinberg add, ‘this innovative facility demonstrates our ability to access wide range of financing sources to support the growth and expansion of our portfolio companies. With the strong links built with the EIB and other European institutions, we expect to be working with them on new transactions to accelerate the growth of other MARCOL companies.